7/15/13

Well BIONZ for mobile is a software based engine that runs in a virtual machine on Krait based architecture. The VM starts when the camera app is opened and it will only be accessible by the Cyber-shot app. Afaik it is not really a processor, but software pretending to be a processor.

I don't know anything about a possible Xenon flash, if I were to take a guess, I would guess no because Sony haven't used Xenon since the C series and Satio which is four years and a different company ago. I think dual LED is what we will get.

As for the sensor, well Sony make a 2/3" sensor already for other camera companies, no 20MP one as has been rumoured, they tend to only go for high MP count in the smaller sensor cameras for whatever reason.

EDIT.

Here's a sensor size comparison

"

razec:

"As ramu mentioned, I saw samples from Honami's camera (with beta software) on 4 ISO settings (100, 400, 800, 1600), before anything else, and I was given the green light to share my thoughts over it. From this point I must say the camera is promising, I can only confirm the following camera specs based on the EXIF data included: 20MP (5248x3936pixels), F2 lens, 5mm focal length. JPEG engine has less aggressive NR than XZ prior to the latter receiving a ported camera driver.

now based on the early sample image that I saw, full res output @ISO100 reveals lots of detail comparable (take note, not better or anything superior) with the old RX100 with minimal loss of detail at ISO400, though at ISO800 and 1600 the image is flooded with Luminance and chroma noise with visible color blotches plaguing the image but someof the small details that I've seen visible with the ISO400 sample are preserved, bokeh effect is virtually similar to 1020's. as you guys would know, I posted my thoughts on Honami's ISO1600 performance relative to RX100's on the previous page before I got my hands on the sample, but now I have to say that RX100 @ISO1600+ is virtually untouchable at any rate. I can't comment on how it fares against 1020, but think they'll be neck and neck when comparing their full resolution outputs. one more thing, the samples exhibited some corners softening but barrel distortion is handled pretty well (could be due to image processor just like how it's usually corrected on compact cameras).

Now compared with all smartphone cameras available 808/1020s aside, Honami's camera performance will wipe the competition including S4 zoom and the old Galaxy Camera IMHO. but I advice we keep our expectations low, 1020's biggest weapon is the oversampling, and I think Sony has nothing to counter against that, so the competition boils down on which camera delivers better per pixel detail at full resolution. and as of this moment, I'm not sure who's got the upper hand to be honest. besides the sample images that I've seen with my eyes are based on pre production software, so we can't rule out the possibility that the JPEG engine will be better.

now the question is can my post be trusted?, I'll leave that to you guys, as I don't have the means to prove the legibility of my post unless I'll be given again the greenlight to show you what I've seen and see things for yourself

@reeflotz, shotokan-san, what I reviewed were actually lowlight samples from Honami's camera

Lowlight shots show lots of details with minimal noise up until ISO400, kinda reminds me of C901 lowlight shots to be honest, ISO800 is grainy throughout the image but there is a small decrease in overall detail compared with the ISO400. The ISO1600 sample on the other hand is very noisy and has green tint on it but I think meddling with photoshop denoising + image downsampling to 5MP can make it usable enough, I'm not expecting the camera to be as good as RX100 at this ISO value at all. I can't comment on the overall color fidelity yet due to the nature of the subject that was captured, but it does renders the red channel vividly, something we're used to see among high end sony compact cameras since the HX9v. as for lens quality, as I said there were some corner softness on the image frame but i found the sharpness at center remarkable, It's much sharper than what the XZ(using original XZ camera driver) could achieve. I believe this is due to the new higher quality G-lens Honami is rumored to come equipped with.

once again, please note that the samples I had were taken from a preproduction software, quality may still be subjected for improvements at launch. this is what I can only share with you guys as I'm not allowed to reveal anything more than that, again the issue of whether you guys would trust me or not lies on your personal judgment

To add another thoughts, I think the decision to choose IBIS over OIS as the mechanical stabilization tech for Honami stems from the fact that it will come with 3rd party lens accessories. as equipping OIS on the third party lens would be very costly, both for lens makers and consumers, not to mention that it will require additional circuitry to enable the device to drive the IS motor on the lens which in turn would make it larger. also another advantage of IBIS apart from the fact that it can stabilize any lens is that it can also stabilize fast lens, as there is no DSLR lens faster than F2.8 that has built in OIS."